


We've Been Sleepwalking All This Time

by Darkhymns



Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Angst, Dystopia, F/F, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21953521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkhymns/pseuds/Darkhymns
Summary: Terca Lumireis is already a doomed world. Its people are just barely scraping by to survive. All cling to their blastia that, with each pulse of aer, only made the monster over their world move them closer towards destruction.Rita Mordio didn't care about any of that. She just wanted to research and be alone until whatever end times came. But an odd job will put her in contact with someone she never expected.
Relationships: Estellise Sidos Heurassein/Rita Mordio
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	We've Been Sleepwalking All This Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SkyWrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyWrites/gifts).



> Me: I don't know how to write convincing cyberpunk.  
> Also me: *does it anyway*
> 
> This is a gift fic for SkyWrites!! This is still in progress so expect more chapters! How many, who knows, but there will be more!! I love ya and you are the most amazing and I wish I had gotten so much more done. But I hope you like what I have so far.

It was just before nightfall when she arrived at the city, though by looking at the sky, one couldn’t really tell anyway. There wasn’t much different about Dahngrest than in any other place to make it so. But the days had gotten darker much quicker – that was one thing she noticed. That, and the shade of violet that decorated everything around her.

Rita caught a glimpse of the time on her wrist, the holographic numbers getting muddled from the stray raindrops that drizzled around her, mussing up her jacket and hair. Not that she cared. The clothes did the job, protecting her enough from the UV rays that were still strong at this hour.

The issue though was her goggles. The damn things were still damaged, and their tech wasn’t updated enough to withstand a few petty drops of water. With a growling sigh, she carefully removed the thing off her head, knowing any further damage would do nothing but harm. She could easily fix this kind of thing without an issue. No blastia-powered tech could escape her – but the problem was, she needed certain materials, certain formulas she needed access to, and such things cost funds. Funds she didn’t have.

Used to be a lot easier to get those funds.

Streets were clear, roads were uneven, and no one was prowling around. Nothing except for a cat or two, which she could barely get close to. City cats trusted less, she knew. It was only 4:30 and the place around her looked very much dead. Abandoned. Maybe someone had ransacked the building for all its worth. She would have just gone past if it weren’t for the cheap-looking neon sign out front over its door. This must have been the right place then, going by the sign’s spelling.

BRAVE VESPERIA, it said. Well, almost said. A few of the letters were out, making it read BAE PERI, with the letter B forever blinking on and off. This was annoying, and she was already beginning to figure out why. Sparks were spilling out from one side of it, all crooked and low on power. Rita took a quick look to figure out why…

 _Ugh! The blastia is barely fitted on right!_ She clenched her fists. _And they haven’t even cleaned the poor thing!_

The metal affixed to the sign, its core gleaming from the harsh lights of the tacky sign, was barely hanging on. Unable to just leave such obvious neglect alone, Rita went to it with active hands. It was an easy job. Literally, all it needed was to be fitted _correctly_ into the slot, and then it worked just fine! She didn’t even need to adjust the formula for it! Whoever had tried putting this on simply didn’t care about the blastia!

Rita took a breath, shaking out her hands. Wouldn’t do to get mad here. Not now anyway.

So, BRAVE VESPERIA. This was the place she had to visit, to get her commission work finally done and paid for.

That name was so stupid.

Yet before she did anything else, she gave a quick glance to the sky, trying to remember what it was like to see the moon and stars. Instead, pulsing veins of violet wrapped all over the horizon, their light so dim, one could even ignore it if they could. If they never looked up, if they never understood what it was they were even looking at. And most people didn’t, anyway. But the Adephagos was as constant as the overturned trash cans of the streets. Just a part of life, a distant warning that rang in the back of one’s head if they let every other sound go silent.

There were theories on how long the barrier would last. A decade. A year. Maybe a month. But none of it mattered. Nothing would change, no matter how close those fingers of violet reached out and squeezed over their entire world.

Rita didn’t even knock on the door. If the sign was this unkempt, she figured it wouldn’t even be locked. And of course, she was right. The door opened easily inward with barely a turn of the knob. The lights around her were dim – but looked to be more due on being a cheap source of power than any ill-maintenance. In fact, with all the tables laid out, and the line of glass bottles gleaming up near the front counter, this place looked more like a bar than any actual professional place for a so-called ‘guild.’

She shut the door behind her, then pulled her jacket close to her. Her backpack shifted with her movement – all so heavy. It would be good to get rid of the weight later… Then she saw a shadow move, from the right.

Clenching her fist, she was about to pull out her augmented sash before seeing it was just a dog, padding up to her with barely a click of its claws on the floorboards.

A brief pause. Then she pulled out her weapon anyway. “Hey! Back off!”

The dog didn’t wag its tail, or pant, or bare its teeth, or do any of the stupid dog things she was used to. It looked scarred on one side. Another sign of neglect, she figured. But it also had a pipe in its mouth for some reason?

Wait, was it carrying a gun holster too? With an actual gun?

She was glad she didn’t stop taking out her weapon now. _Maybe I can just use the cat treats to distract it…_

The dog just stared at her. Stared at her for a long time. Was it assessing her? She wasn’t a dog-person by any means, so she had no clue. But then it started to turn away, its sharply pointed tail nearly brushing against her leg. It only moved a few feet ahead, towards an open entrance in the far-left wall, before it looked back at her.

So, this dog with a gun wanted her to follow. _Whatever._

Rita still kept her sash in hand as she trailed after the dog. She now took a closer look at it, something like chains wrapped around its upper torso. A junkyard dog, maybe. Except it wasn’t tied to anything. Maybe it had escaped. Maybe it had taken to her for its new master after killing off its old one. Eh, she didn’t have time to take care of any pets. At least cats left you alone.

The room it led her into was dingier than the last. This felt more like an office, but it was outfitted in a dumb, flashy way. Some antiquated tapestries draped across the wall, an even more antiquated candle chandelier hanging from above, and a desk to the side that held something that looked like a mug in the shape of a skull. Was that supposed to be intimidating? At least the dog with a gun was something slightly less cliché.

Said dog finally made a sound – two barks, low and weirdly-human like in its tone. Then it went off to the side to sit down and nip at its leg from an itch.

Ahead of Rita was a large opulent chair, and someone was sitting in it, someone that she couldn’t see. The lights from above stopped just before reaching said person and chair, leaving that entire side of the room in the dark.

They had really planned this out, didn’t they?

“Are you Rita Mordio?” came the low voice. Strangely low. Like the person wasn’t used to it.

She crossed her arms, wishing her goggles worked now. Even a genius didn’t have natural infrared vision. “Yep. Here to give my findings.” Despite how much she didn’t want to. If they could barely take care of a freaking sign…

“You’re late,” the person spoke again. “It’s three days past our meeting time.”

Rita simply tapped her foot against the rotted floors. “Yeah, the directions I got were pretty garbage. Took me almost all the way damn Capua Nor before I had to re-coordinate it myself!”

“Oh. Sorry, I thought I’d-” A cough, interrupting their own words. “I mean…that still doesn’t excuse your lateness. We have contracts with our clients to uphold, to keep our word with them. If our suppliers can’t be efficient, then maybe we will need to look elsewhere.”

Rita groaned. “Ugh, well you didn’t exactly give me enough time on my excavation! You know how long it usually takes? Months and months of research and work! And you give me just two weeks! Barely enough time to even get past the surface of most ruin sites!”

The person in the chair was already flustered, at least from the constant shifting they were doing in their chair. Or were they trying to get off it? Their feet could barely reach the floor. “Uh, well… still not an excuse! The rush time was necessary! And you still agreed to it, did you not?”

Rita bit her lip. “Yeah…I suppose so.” Because she needed the money.

“Then it’s on _you_ to meet those terms.” The voice sounded smug and proud. Just from something like that? From the person’s size, she was already suspecting, already feeling supremely annoyed. “Brave Vesperia will forgive you for this one transgression.”

This stupid person sounded so high and mighty.

“Why are you talking like that? Are you trying to sound like royalty or-”

“Hey, Captain. You forgot the lights?”

A surprised yelp came out from the dark figure’s mouth. Rita merely blinked. Both turned to the right, seeing a guy in a dirty t-shirt with a large wrench laid back against his shoulder lazily as he appeared from a side entrance. She saw the gleam of a gold band around his waist – a bohdi blastia. Those were rare.

“Just got done with the plumbing. Had to give a few whacks to that aque blastia though. Are the lux ones now messing up? Maybe we need to move to the place next door instead.” The guy turned to finally see Rita, holding up his other hand to her in a barely-competent wave. “Hey, new recruit?”

“Yuri! I’m-!” the dark figured squeaked. After realizing that, he tried to lower his voice and fiercely whispered, “I’m in a meeting right now!”

“Oh. Then all the more reason to get some light in here.” Yuri glanced to his right. “Thing’s not even flipped on. Lemme get that for you.”

“H-Hey! Yuri, wait! Ahh!”

The rest of the lights flickered on, stronger now and humming with the lux blastia powering them. To Rita’s boredom, a snot-nosed 12-year old was revealed to her on his peeling plush chair before faceplanting himself on the floor. He had tried to reach out to the other guy despite being several feet away. That high-pitched scream had been him falling down rather violently, not helped at all by the giant bag he had apparently been cradling in his lap.

Yuri looked towards the kid who may or may not have gotten skull fractures just then. “Ya alright?”

The so-called ‘captain’ sat up, rubbing at his bruised nose with a whine. “Gah, you ruined it! I had a really cool speech planned out and everything!”

“Huh. My bad.” Yuri lounged himself in a spare chair that creaked with his weight, still tapping the wrench against his shoulder. “Here. Try again. I never said a word.”

“That’s not how it-! Argh, and just when I was building up a cool reputation for us…”

“Aw, don’t worry, Captain Karol. I’m sure you did good at being intimidating. Right?” He looked to Rita as he said so. “Ya think he did good?”

Rita frowned. “Why the hell are you asking me?”

“See? She gets ya.”

Rita had enough of this. She stamped her foot, really tempted to immolate something or _someone_ in the next five seconds. “Hey! I don’t care who’s the leader here or what, but am I gonna get paid for my services already?”

She looked at this guy called Yuri as she spoke. Surely, he was the one in charge… Probably got his kid brother to play boss. But Yuri just held up his hands. “Hey, don’t look at me. I’m just the plumber.”

A quick bark from the other side of the room nearly made Rita jump. She massaged her temples. “Don’t tell me it’s the dog…”

“It’s me! _I’m_ the leader of Brave Vesperia!” Karol finally got to his feet, waving his arms about and nearly falling over again from that giant purse he wore. “Why does no one ever believe me…”

“Gotta show more confidence, Captain!” Yuri winked. “Just think, what would the Don do?”

The Don? Why were they bringing a mob boss into this? She shook her head. Was the money even worth it? "You know what, I’m just gonna leave if-”

“Wait! Wait wait wait please!!” Karol was repeating so pathetically, his eyes wide as he rushed forward. She got a better look at some red bandana he wore around her neck, and at the oversized shirt and pants that actually looked similar to… _Huh. That’s the stuff from one of the orphanages around here._ It was enough to make her pause, enough to give time for Karol to make his case.

“We- we need all the relics you got for us. The people who asked for them really depend on us! We can’t let them down!” Karol clenched his fists, bringing them up to his chest. He still wobbled from that large bag – it was plain it carried something heavy, but even the blastia in the bag could barely help the kid keep in synch with its weight.

“Oh yeah? That gives you the right to insult my work, huh?” Rita made to turn away. “Forget it. I’m out of here-”

“Aaaah! Wait, please!”

Rita wasn’t listening, until suddenly the dog from before (with that same gun!) was in front of her. It didn’t growl, or raise up its fur, but it was clearly _in her way_ and she didn’t like it one bit.

“Argh, tell your mutt to move it!” she said, and it was then she saw the animal finally react. Lowering its head, a soft little growl leaving its throat.

“Easy, Repede. It’s just been a hard day for all of us, alright?” Yuri walked up to her, and instantly the dog relaxed, sitting back on its haunches, yet still keeping careful watch on Rita with its single eye. “Hey, I get you’re trying to make a show of things, but we both know that leaving right now wouldn’t make things any better, would it?”

Rita turned on Yuri with a flourish. “Why are you talking like you know any damn thing about me?”

“I didn’t say that. Just, times are hard, you know.” Yuri shrugged. “For all of us, remember?”

Rita bit her lip. She noticed one thing; most of the windows here were covered by the curtains and cheap shades. It was like that for most on this street as she made her way to the location. No one liked looking up at the skies lately.

With a huff, she turned back and slid the backpack off her shoulder. She placed it on the floor with care. Even with her wrapping, any damage to the relics would have been catastrophic. She swallowed, hating to just give it away to these people, when they belonged in the archives at Aspio.

But nothing but rats and cockroaches lived among those dead libraries anyway.

“Here. And don’t mess them up. Most of the blastia should be dead by now anyway.” She knew. She had tried revitalizing some, but the older works couldn’t seem to survive in the current climate anymore.

Karol’s eyes lit up, hands reaching to the bag before Rita instinctively slapped them away. He jumped back with a yelp. “Hey! What’d you do that for?!”

“I said to be careful with it!”

“I didn’t even touch it!”

“You two are getting along already.” Yuri knelt on the floor, sifting through the backpack’s contents. Old machinery, antiquated tablets, and few dead Cores, their surfaces cracked, were among the trove, all of them within their own compartments. “Huh, even labeled them all. Nice job. Give her a raise, Captain.”

“She’s not part of the guild!”

“Okay, a bonus.”

Rita raised an eyebrow. Maybe this Yuri guy wasn’t so bad after all.

* * *

So, the Brave Vesperia guild consisted of a kid who should be in elementary school, some lazy dude that looked homeless, and a dog with a gun. Could be weirder, she supposed.

Probably as weird as there being any surviving guilds to begin with.

Maybe when the world had been a little less hectic, such honorable guilds were probably good ways to make a living. Aspio once had some of their own, she remembered, but it was in Dahngrest where many were born and had thrived. But then, things changed, got harder. Only certain ones like the Hunter’s Guild made any kind of impact, for mercenaries and monster-killers were more valuable than old relics and books.

A guild based on solely ‘helping people’ wasn’t enough to make any serious bank… Especially when it might as well have been a glorified lost-and-found business.

“You nearly done?” Rita asked. She sat back on one of the ripped leather couches placed against the wall, tapping her foot again on the floor. The couch had some weird designs like an anchor and a skull and crossbones, but she figured it was just stupid kid tastes. “I haven’t exactly been _paid_ yet, you know.”

“S-Sorry! I’m- I’m almost done!” Karol had been cataloging each and every item from the bag to a computer, clearly having trouble with it as Rita observed his keystrokes. The keyboard was an old model too, made of actual plastic and mercury instead of the holographic kind most people used. So the clicking was ten times more annoying. “I’m just… making sure everything is here.”

“So you don’t trust me, huh? How insulting!”

“It’s- It’s procedure! Right, Yuri?”

“I dunno.” Yuri was busy feeding Repede some kibble from a tin bowl. “She seems like she’s telling the truth.”

“Come on, Yuri…”

Rita didn’t exactly understand why this guy was deferring all responsibility to a kid, but then he was the most laid-back person she’d ever met in this wasteland of a world. “Whatever. Just hurry up before I take a cat nap.”

“I am! Just let me-” Karol paused. “A what now?”

“A nap! You deaf now?”

“Okay, okay! Sorry…” Karol finally shut the hell up and went back to his painfully slow process. Looked like he’d finally be done by next century. She should just take over instead… Maybe the guild needed a new damn typist.

But she hated people anyway. Best to work alone.

Rita really was about to take a nap then and there, until she felt the seat next to her shift. Hackles raised, she flipped out the sash from around her waist, the circuitry engraved on it flickering to life as the blastia she wore around her neck hummed.

“Whoa, easy there,” said Yuri, leaning back with barely any concern that she was about to burn him up. “Need to learn to chill.”

“Ugh, shut up.” But Rita carefully lowered her arms, the panic in her limbs still taking a while to fade. “What do you want?”

Yuri seemed to have immediately spaced out and was staring at the wall before he finally answered. “I meant what I said before, about times being hard.” His gaze flicked back to her. “We don’t exactly have a help wanted sign, but we could always use said help, you know.”

Did this guy just read her mind? Rita instantly distrusted him. “No thanks. I did a quick job and now I wanna get paid. That’s it.”

Yuri shrugged. “Just saying. The offer’s open.”

“I doubt your ‘captain’ would very much want me here anyway.”

“Oh, Karol? Nah, he loves you. Hey, Karol. Don’t you love Rita?”

“Y-Yuri! What are you talking about?”

Rita could already feel a headache coming on. She really wanted that cat nap for real.

“Anyway, how old are ya?” Yuri asked. “Doesn’t seem like you’ve done this kind of thing for long.”

Ugh, was he hitting on her now? “I’m 16, so stop being creepy. I ain’t interested.”

“Hm,” Yuri said, then turned away. She could barely catch a glimpse of his face. “Yeah. Times really are tough..”

“Oh, hey… um, actually… Rita? I mean, Ms. Mordio?” Karol’s voice wavered back to her like a slinking worm. She raised her head, already seeing him wince despite the fact that she was nowhere near him. “Uh! Sorry, just…there’s an item missing here… I probably counted it wrong! But…I don’t think I did?”

That headache was now spiking up in her temples. Usually hitting something made her feel better at this point.

“Can you name the stupid item already?”

“I-I was getting to that!” Karol yelled back, tiny fists clenched. This was the first she saw the hint of a backbone in the kid. “It’s a book… one of our clients has been requesting that for a while. If you didn’t find it, um…it’s okay. It’s apparently been really hard to get-”

“Oh, you mean this thing?” Rita pulled said book out of her jacket, the covers weathered with age, the pages made of actual paper. That’s how old it was, when everything that was recorded was done electronically and within the keystrokes of a formula. “I have it. Old children’s book. The Legend of the Bride’s Veil. Found it underneath the Halure site.” She still remembered the scent of the cherry blossoms as she visited that abandoned town. Its own barrier had died long ago. Centuries, maybe. Left to scavengers and mutant animals that roamed the wilder areas.

“Oh! You do! That’s great!” Karol did a jump in the air that Rita was just not feeling. “Okay, so that should be everything… and once we make the deliveries-”

“Ah, perfect!” Yuri nudged Rita, nearly making her fall out of her seat in surprise. “Me and Patty are kinda swamped, but little miss Rita would be perfect for this job.”

Her mind went blank for a moment. What.

Karol seemed to be lost with her in the dark. “Huh? She would?”

“Yep. No doubt about it.”

“Excuse me?” Rita got to her feet, still clutching the book tight in her hand. “I didn’t agree to be a damn courier! Do your own deliveries!”

Karol (once again) jumped, though this time in fear, while Yuri simply laughed. “Just think of it as a pizza delivery.”

“Yuri, you’re not helping!”

“You’ll get an extra, extra bonus if you do.”

“What?!”

Rita didn’t like being played for a fool, but she assessed Yuri’s words, and the ones he told her before. “I have better things to do.”

“I mean…” Yuri shrugged. He did that a _lot_ , she noticed. “Do you really?”

How nice it would be to smack his head wide open, but she didn’t like the way he had sat near her without even hearing a step. Just like that dog of his.

Did he know something?

“I, I could just do it instead…” Karol’s small voice was completely ignored. Rita took the plunge.

“Fine, I’ll bite. You better tell me where this client is right now so I can just throw this at them.”

Yuri chuckled. “Nice one.”

“Guys, you’re kinda going too fast for me…”

Rita turned to Karol, impatience lacing her tone. “I said I’ll do the stupid delivery. Now tell me where to go! And don’t forget to pay me first!”

Karol didn’t even have time to squeak. He went back to the computer, typing so rapidly on the keyboards that she was sure he was going to have a panic attack. He looked like he was having one right now! But as Karol breathed fast, Yuri just said from across the room, “Doing good, boss!” and the boy seemed to relax. Slightly.

She looked back at the book she held close to her, for some reason. Because it didn’t fit with the rest of the other relics. Because it was more fragile. Because a few cherry blossoms were still stuck in-between the pages. The dye from such petals would stain the other items if she let them near each other, no doubt some of the pages already ruined. That was all it was.

Yet, the book was nothing blastia-related. And the story itself was no great work of fiction, for she had never even heard of it before. Who’d want this piece of junk?

She saw Karol hunch over at the screen, the keyboard nearly cracking at the pressure as he leaned on it. “Huh. Estellise… No last name. It was only that one item they wanted too. They’re… not far? At the end of Zaude avenue.”

Yuri shifted next to her, moving forward just a step, his face turned away. “Hey, what luck. You just gotta cross the street basically. Think you can remember those directions?”

Rita frowned, but whatever, this wasn’t the exactly the worst deal in the world. And she needed the money. Always needed the money.

“Estellise, at the end of Zaude avenue, got it. I’ll just dump this at their doorstep or something.”

“Ah, no no, you have to hand deliver it to them!” Karol stood up tall, smiling wide. “It’s the Brave Vesperia way! We get you your items in your hands directly! To ensure no rip-offs or thievery!”

“…Well, that’s stupid. What if nobody’s home? Or they’re away on like a trip? Do they just never receive their valuable package? What kind of dumb policy is that?”

Karol got silent, blinking as Rita laid out her reasonings. He hung his head. “I thought it was good…”

Damn, she weirdly felt… bad? It really was a stupid policy though! But she felt Yuri’s eyes on her and shook her head. “I mean, I’ll still hand deliver it to them anyway! Not letting my hard work go to waste and this book ends up in someone’s landfill.”

Karol smiled again, and Yuri gave her a thumbs up. Even the dog, Repede, gave an approving bark. What a weird group. “Knew we could count on ya,” spoke Yuri.

“Okay, but for real, where’s my money-”

“Arr, hold thar horses! Can’t go landlubbin about without yer proper nutrition!”

What now? _What now?_

Rita felt like she had been turning around in every direction all evening, and the last thing she expected was finding a little girl in pigtails, wearing a pirate’s hat, all while holding up a platter filled with steak and vegetables and curry and – Rita couldn’t even name it all. It was a _lot_ of food.

“Thar she blows! All aboard the decks and taste your captain’s cooking!” The girl was grinning, looking the same age as the boss of the guild. “Or uh, first mate, I mean! Sorry about that, Captain.”

Karol looked like he was ready to salivate the night away as he stared at the platter. “That looks so good, Patty!”

Rita leaned towards Yuri, viciously whispering, “Are you running a goddamn daycare here?”

Yuri faced her with a lazy grin – a grin that told her absolutely nothing. “Times are tough, remember?”


End file.
